(03-04-2019, 01:38 PM)TJBender Wrote:

(03-04-2019, 12:56 PM)MalabarJag Wrote: There are so many ways in which the US government wastes taxpayer dollars that making such a list is a waste of message board space. 

The $46M wasted on making pennies (I agree that it's a waste) is insignificant compared the F-35 program. We've spent hundred of billions of dollars for a fighter jet that still isn't working while the US cancelled production on by far the best fighter jet ever made (the F-22). In perspective that's about 10,000 years worth of the waste in making pennies.

This. We're continuing to sink billions upon billions into a fighter that makes pilots so disoriented that they puke in their helmets and is in many ways a step back from the rockstar F-16 it's replacing.

I would support removal of the penny, but the followup question is how badly consumer groups would muck everything up by demanding that all transactions be rounded up. Let's assume that the "compromise" solution is that all transactions are rounded up, and if the retailer has to give back a couple more cents than the register says to, the difference is taken back from sales tax. Now, how much is that lost sales tax costing the government, which will inevitably pass it on to us? Maybe municipalities raise sales tax rates, because they're probably the ones who will take the hit. Maybe it's states that do. Maybe property taxes get bumped a little, or vehicle registration fees go up. Who knows? The system, as it exists today, is not ready for life after the penny, because consumer groups will come in, sue the living crap out of everyone over the two cents that someone could lose on a given transaction and force a step back.